Have you ever heard someone say something like this?
"Kids these days... why, when I was their age, my mom would just rub dirt in it and call it good."
"Well, when I was in school, I walked several miles through ten feet of snow, uphill both ways!"
"Maybe if parents were raising their kids better, we wouldn't be in this mess!"
"These younger generations are going to ruin America!"
I remember hearing similar phrases when I was a youngster. Some adults would be talking about how "kids these days" are a big problem and will probably ruin all the good things their hard working generation had fought for. Now as an adult, I still hear it and have even caught myself saying similar things. The younger generations are an easy scapegoat for all of society's current and impending problems.
I once read an article in the Wall Street Journal that talked about how humans have a long track record of longing for the "good old days." Apparently, every generation goes through this phase of nostalgic longing for their golden past, believing it to be much better than the present. And there's usually plenty of skepticism about the future to go with it.
According to the article, "Cuneiform tablets show that 5,000 years ago, the Babylonians were already complaining that the world had gone downhill..."
Isn't that hilarious? 😆
I can imagine these ancient Babylonians saying, "Why, when I was their age, the Code of Hammurabi was good enough for me! Next thing you know, these kids will start saying our supreme god Shamash is nothing more than a burning ball of gas in the sky!"
The 1950's are often envisioned as a "golden era" of America's past. But the article continues, "In the 1950s, American sociologists worried that rampant individualism was tearing the family apart. There were serious racial and class tensions, and everyone lived under the very real threat of instant nuclear annihilation. In fact, many in the 1950s thought that the good old days were to be found a generation earlier, in the 1920s. But in the 1920s, the pioneering child psychologist John Watson warned that because of increasing divorce rates, the American family would soon cease to exist..."
On and on it goes...
Religious folks can be some of the loudest at condemning the present generation while longing for some lost golden era when everything was great. It's basically built into the worldview of many Christians, who have adopted a kind of doomsday eschatology (eschatology refers to "last things" or "the end") that was popularized in the 20th Century by folks using a particular way of reading the book of Revelation. This belief system teaches that the world is getting constantly worse, that each generation is moving successively closer to the rise of darkness, where an evil one world government will be ruled by an Anti-Christ figure, and a great war (Armageddon) will eventually break out, along with other doomsday atrocities (supposedly) detailed in the book of Revelation.
So it makes perfect sense to a large number of folks that each upcoming generation could be the great turning point that ruins the world. It creates an extremely pessimistic and apathetic view of the future because "it's all gonna burn anyway." Sadly it's the only view many Christians have ever been taught, and it tends to shape how we live. Just in my short lifetime, I've lost track of how many Anti-Christ figures and supposed rapture dates have come and gone, having been predicted by supposed prophets or authorities (who were wrong every single time). 2020 was a year where I heard not just a few times, "the book of Revelation is being fulfilled!"
People with this view also tend to romanticize a supposed past "golden era" of the Church. Often you'll hear things like, "We need to get back to the book of Acts!" Apparently that's when everything was fantastic... except that it wasn't. The first Christians faced worse conditions and harsher persecutions than anyone in America has begun to imagine (though that won't stop many Christians from whining like they are being persecuted). And the Church was definitely not in some pristine, unified condition where everyone believed in the "true" Gospel- (you know, before all these danged liberals ruined it...). Just read the letters of the Apostles in the New Testament- they are all addressing major problems, divisions, corruptions, and downright ridiculous issues that the churches were dealing with. It was bad enough that they thought the end was near, likely to happen in their lifetime.
Every generation seems to think the world is crumbling and they're losing the once blessed reality they used to know. New innovations and developments are regularly demonized as the rise of this present generation's debauchery. According to the article mentioned above, when bicycles first came on the scene, some people feared they would "create a generation of hunchbacks, since riders leaned forward all day, and that sitting in a bicycle saddle would make women infertile."
Today, it's kids who play video games and use smart phones that will "ruin America." Their brains are apparently rotting from all of this digital stimulation, and they're becoming lazy, entitled brats who have to be entertained and are good for nothing and will probably usher in the age of the Terminator. Of course, there are some legit concerns (and scientific data to back it) about the overuse of digital media, but you get the point. We could also talk about the recent doomsday scenarios around COVID, vaccines, and government control, but let's save that for another day. As people get older, they tend to start thinking that everything was better when they were a kid, and happily judge the upcoming generation as the one who's going to blow it (which also conveniently excuses them from any of the blame).
What is strangely absent from the worldview of a good number of Christians is the belief that God is actually "making all things new," as it says in Revelation 21:5. Or take, for example, the prayer of Jesus for God's kingdom to come and God's will to be done "on earth as it is in heaven." Is it possible that this prayer is actually being answered to some degree, and that maybe some things are actually getting better in this world? Or look at the parables of Jesus about the mustard seed or the leaven in the dough or seeds or light or any of the teachings where it starts small but grows into something well beyond what was expected. Why, in light of these pictures of God's kingdom and growth, are Christians so pessimistic and cynical about there being any progress in the world? Yes, there is also darkness, but the darkness has not overcome the light (John 1:5).
The Apostle Paul had a few words about living with hope, trusting in good things to come, living at peace with everyone as much as possible, loving others as the most excellent way that never fails, always trusting and persevering, living with gratitude, believing in the power of God, etc. Yes, he also said that the last days would also have terrible evils (2 Timothy 3:1-5). But you'd think Christians would maybe be a little more optimistic about God's redemptive work in the world. Jesus, likewise, said there would be trouble in this world, but to take heart because he has overcome it (John 16:33). That doesn't mean "hold on for dear life and await the great escape from it all." It means to press in with confidence, be present in the world, be a change agent, rest and trust in the work of Christ, who is the redeemer, who is making all things new (Rev. 21:5), who will not let any of your work be in vain (1 Cor. 15:58), who is in all and through all (Eph. 4:6), and who holds all things together (Col. 1:17). It's a God-soaked world... act like it.
Unfortunately, doomsday eschatology remains quite pervasive, like a dark overcast in the Christian imagination. It seems Christians tend to prefer labeling everyone outside their camp the "enemy," and imagining darkness prevailing as the world just gets worse and worse. There is apparently something quite appealing to separating ourselves from all the "wrong" people, and seeing ourselves as the persecuted victims who heroically stand up for what's right. So instead of having a reputation for leading the world in healing and restoration, Christians have a long track record of escapism, pronouncing judgment and condemnation, and even encouraging the destruction of the world.
And this is why: your imagination will guide your life and actions. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The mind either gets renewed and sanctified and transformed by the light of the Gospel, or it tends to get sucked into fear-based narratives of self-preservation, control, and escapism. A "gospel" that embraces fatalism and escapism is a "gospel" that denies the Incarnation, and is really no gospel at all.
